“Medicaid, a state program to aid the poor, is falling short of providing living wages and benefits to nursing home workers,” says Living Wages and Health Care Out of Reach: A report on the overlooked nursing home workers (pdf), a new report from SEIU Healthcare 775NW. The union surveyed frontline nursing home workers in Washington state and found a median starting wage for CNAs of $9.75 per hour, “well below the living wage of a single adult.”

Another major problem, the report notes, is lack of affordable health insurance. “In a recent survey of over 150 randomly-sampled Washington CNAs, only a quarter reported having health insurance from their employer. Although it is possible that a higher proportion of nursing homes/employers offer insurance to their employees, it is likely that employees are unable to pay the premiums.”

The report calls on the state to solve this problem by increasing the Medicaid funding targeted at improving wages and benefits for ”our much needed, inadequately paid nursing home workers.”